If you want to do the chain clean once in a while with oiled chains you might find this helpful: I store my used fluids in extra containers. After some time the particles fall to the bottom and leave a mostly clean fluid. When I do another chain unlubing I carefully fill most of the clean fluid into the container with the chain. After taking the chain out of the degreaser I let wipe it and let it dry for a minute before rinsing it. In the end I might have to add one more alcohol clean. Like that I can reuse especially the more expensive and "unfriendly to the environment" fluids. Btw. please recycle these fluids instead of pouring the into the drain.

10:40 for the directions to clean

I'm a year and a half into prepping my mtb chain as Oz directs herein. THIS TECHNIQUE ROCKS! And it produces quantifiable results in shifting, chain life, and cleanliness of the drivetrain. I used to spend a considerable amount of time trying to get my chain and drivetrain clean and well lubed for shifting performance. Oz's technique does take some time and preparation, but I now batch prep 2 chains for each family member's bike, and simply swap out the chains with freshly cleaned/waxed ones as needed; and then I can clean and re-wax at my leisure. In the end, I'm saving time by using this technique rather than using the lubes of old. I love how clean my drivetrain stays--that's a great benefit of this technique. But my favorite part is the longevity of great shifting. I ride about 50 miles/week on trails that are often dry and dusty in the Colorado Front Range. I get good shifting for at least 4x longer than I did pre-waxing. I'm still using my initial batch of 1 lb. of wax w/ 50 grams of teflon (PTFE) and have probably done initial waxing and re-waxing about 15 times. It's almost time for a new batch of wax/teflon. Oh yeah, I picked up a used slow cooker on craigslist for $10. I couldn't find PTFE in 1.6 micron size in the US, but the 3 micron size is doing the trick; but I don't doubt that smaller size PTFE is better. Thank you Oz! This is one of the most satisfying changes I've made that produces great results with bike maintenance. I raise my glass to you brother!

I got black carbon bike so, my chain matches

I have watched this video a few times and it finally hit me why it seems familiar: you shake the jars like John Cleese rings a bell in the Monty Python interview skit. I thank you for the wax instruction, and for the reminder!

Started waxing my chain as watched your other videos and love it .. Keep up the good work .

This was incredible. Well explained, clean and simple editing, and insanely useful. Thank you for a great video!!

Thank you so much for all your videos. They're some of the most informative and helpful episodes anywhere. I especially love the "chain" videos and am now a waxing convert. I look forward to all future productions.

Thank you for the thorough video!! Watched on a Tuesday. Started my new chain cleaning and waxing routine by Friday. This is gold!! I love it!!!

This is perhaps the best explanation of chain cleaning and reason to use a dry lubricant that I have ever seen. Just excellent work!

Chains going to be clean, wife's going to be dirty about everything that belongs in the kitchen is now in the shed. 😂

Steve, whenever you post it brightens my day and I always end up with a smile! You've taught me more about bike care and maintenance as well as tips and tricks than anyone else! Keep it up mate! Much love!

From my lab days - the best way to get rid of the dirty petrol (gasoline) and methylated spirits (alcohol) is to let it evaporate in the sunshine. Wipe away the dry residue and dispose of that properly. I use one of those simple black pans sold for oil changes. It sounds like a strange method, but industry is allowed to let evaporate thousands of gallons of chemicals on a weekly basis. Evaporation much better than pouring it on the ground or down a drain. Thanks for this great cleaning technique.

I have roughly followed your wax method for a year on commuter.This vid encouraged me to do better clean first. Thanks Steve.

Okay, this is a great video on chains and lubrication strategies, the best. The chain wear portion made the best sense, and I thought the use of several solvents and serial dilution techniques were outstanding! Thanks!

I use wax one my Road bikes for years now. Works perfectly fine. This winter I started to go gravel instead of indoor training. Here's the problem: in temperatures around 0 Deg Celsius and below the wax became brittle and just falls off the chains. After 20 km off-road mud is the only "lubricant" being left and shifting becomes f***d. After going back to synthetic oil the problem is solved. My result: summer bike=wax, winter bike=oil

There's no new wax coming, he's just pulling your "CHAIN"! LOL Great Videos, thanks 4 sharing!

This guy explains everything so well

Excellent. Would loved to have seen you wearing those safety glasses hanging on the board, but I'm funny like that. Cheers, and a stunning collection of bikes at the beginning.

For a period of my early working life I repaired avionic equipment where the workshop had a glass faced vacuum chamber . The ultimate relube is to put your clean chain into your lubricant of choice , agitate beaker to remove majority of air and then evacuate the environment to equivalent 40 thousand feet or so. Many many bubbles leave the links of the chain and oil/hot wax fills the void. It was very satisfying to watch knowing how thorough a job was being done. I question how much wax , even when hot ,truely gets to the actual wearing parts as shown in this video but its the best method I can do these days. This video does a great job showing how to get the wax to stick to where it gets access but surface tension would inhibit a lot into the small spaces that matter as I witnessed years ago! Missing from this video are the pressure ratings of waxes compared to oils. This doesn’t detract from the virtues of wax contained in this vid though.

Really appreciate your videos. I degreased my chain in white gas (every 2000km), and in-between with the blue washing saloon tool ;) you presented. What can I say? Rode 4000km on it (in all weather conditions), and there is practically no chain wear. Apart from striving to achieve the best (legit reason IMHO), I don't exactly see the point to do anything else -- I'm happy to get a new chain every 6000km or so.

I've been doing a slight variant on this method for several years that's quicker and simpler, plus my own little twist. I use these same little plastic containers, pour in some mineral spirits, and swish the chain around. I have a rare earth magnet taped to the outside bottom of the container. The rare earth magnet will attract the microscopic steel wear particles to the bottom of the container and hold them there. I'll shake the chain in the mineral spirits and let it soak for a little bit, then pull it out after it's settled a little (and the wear particles are bunched up at the bottom of the container by the magnet), then put them in another container with cleaner mineral spirits and give it a rinse. Then it's just hung up to dry, reinstalled onto the bike, re-lubed, and off I go. It's possible that a third rinse in brand-new mineral spirits would achieve an even more thorough cleansing, but it's really unnecessary. With the rare earth magnet trapping the overwhelming majority of any metal wear particles in the first bucket, and another rare earth magnet trapping any wear particles that were still present in the second rinsing bucket, this chain is as clean and free of wear particles as it reasonably needs to be. If you try this with the rare earth magnet, you'll be shocked at how much stuff is stuck to it, and after only a few hundred miles of riding. The amount of worn steel particles pulled out of a really good-looking and relatively new chain that's been ridden is probably far greater than most folks would predict. Getting that material out of the chain is the primary benefit of this method of cleaning, because removing wear particles from the insides of the chain where the links contact each other is going to reduce the rate of wear.

Yet another great video. Constantly raining here in UK so will shortly be using this method to clean my chain.. Thanks

the petro-chemical industry thanks you. Informative video and that Canyon looks lovely with the matched details.

Thanks for the great video. I am a long time fan of waxing and Santa brought me an ultrasonic cleaner last year. FYI, methylated spirit is more commonly known as denatured alcohol in the USA and perhaps in other locales. Since the rinse water is miscible in alcohol it also provides the benefit of removing any hidden water before waxing.

I have 3 Melitta coffee filter cones that I run the solvents through when I'm done. The really fine particles will clog the filters occasionally so you may have to use 2 or 3 filters. I'm still using your original wax recipe, I made a large batch that will last me another couple of years.

Lovely job mate. You cope very well with being so overwhelmingly right on this

Wow! Now I know how to deep clean my chain. Thanks for posting.

LOL. I love how everything on KZfaq is always "the ultimate!"

Not sure if it's available in Australia, but here in Poland we commonly use low-aromatic extraction naphtha. Very potent degreaser, guaranteed to remove all grease, oils, dirt and grime. Leaves the chain extremely dry.

Excellent. Subscribed for the wax update late December 👏👏

This dude is a real scientist, very interesting content

Skip to 10:37 otherwise you will quit watching this vid.

One thing to add - after each stage, or at least the last one, better to clean dry your chain with cloth but not to left it to dry by itself - that way spirits evaporated from the surface will not left those oily residue dissolved in spirit. Molecular mass of spirits is much less than oil in the chain and this oil will be left in chain after methanol evaporated. Yes, most part of it dissolved in spirit volume and stay in a jar with rest of the liquid but we are talking about Ultimate cleaning ;)

OK, Oz, I'm all in- getting ready to wax a brand new chain as I convert from a Compact to Semi- Compact gear set. Had to review your cleaning process to get the chain ready for when my chain rings arrive. Maybe this summer (winter for us Yanks) I'll make a batch of the liquid- been lazy and using store bought wax drip after my initial wax bath. Thanks for the video.

Brilliant in plain simple stepped out practicality. Thanks heaps so pleased I'm a locked in subscriber

It's all nice and good, a waxed chain must last really long and be very efficient, but i always feel that all this work and chemicals and tools kinda match the costs of buying a new chain more frequently. Those hours i spend with religiously cleaning and lubing my chain, i could be working on something else and earning more money than i would save with waxing. Sure, i still keep my chain as clean as possible, but life is too short to worry so much about it. It would be nice to have an actual calculation on the costs and savings though, certainly an interesting topic.

Actual information on his method for chain cleaning starts at 10:30

love the details that are explained. thanks!

Going to do this this weekend with 2 chains! Thanks!

I do a similar thing but I have a couple of extra stages. I like to start with aircraft grade Kerosine (preferably military) and then after the mentholated spirits I’ll finish the chain off in a bath of Cesium 137 solution. Instead of shaking the chain in plastic pots I have the winding mechanism from a cement truck upended on a concrete plinth in my garden, I power it from an old six litre Chevrolet V8 and I spin the mixtures up to 28,000 RPM, the point at which violent dew-point evaporation occurs.... then I just dry them on the radiator.

back to boiling in paraphine, just like we did in old USSR and some still do

I'm subbed to 75+ channels. But this is the first channel I've turned notifications on for. Really want to see that new wax recipe

Thank you very much for this video mate! Much appreciated

This guy certainly got a strange fetisch feeling peoples chains up.

I used to wax my chain years ago with just plain paraffin. I never really cleaned my chain properly though (at least nothing like this) and didn't re-wax as often as Oz recommends so I am sure that I was not getting the same lubrication or longevity benefits. I ordered some PTFE powder and looking forward to trying this method. I miss being able to take my rear wheel off without ending up a greasy mess. That's the nicest benefit, especially on the road. Thanks for posting this!

I needed this video more than the new waxing video. Well done! I cant wait for the waxing video.

One of the best accidental videos I stumbled upon! Thank you so much for your advices, much appreciated! Greetings from Romania!

OK, so my chain's been chilling in degreaser for the past 3 weeks waiting for the new wax recipe...

I’m sure people are going to love cleaning that dirty oil from their nice clean patio tiles!

This is excellent. Thank you, I understand now why my chain gets so dirty so quickly, and also how to remedy it.

I can't wait for the new wax video. Notifications have been turned on!

Super, its been interesting following the gradual progression! :) ! DON'T FORGET ! to clean your cassette and crank-set when switching from liquid to wax!!! ;) or you did all that work for nothing

I want the new wax video, and I WANT IT NOW!!! ;)

It is winter in Germany right now. So we are freezing and trying to keep our legs strong on spinning bikes in the gym.Time to change worn out parts and clean the drivetrain. I am going to try waxing the chain of my MTB. Thank you for a great vid from the other side of the world - i still think you guys are driving on the "wrong" side. I am confident that your method of waxing also works on the "right" side.

Excellent video as always

So Steve, is cleaning in this way the secret to the performance you got with wax in your previous video or have you also improved the wax recipe?

Ultrasonic cleaner works great with degreaser. What you need to do is get a glass jar just big enough for the chain. Put degreaser in it. Use the minimum amount needed so you don't waste. Put the jar in water in the ultrasonic cleaner. Most of the ultrasonic action transfers into the jar. So then you can change the degreaser several times. If you use anything flammable, be extremely careful. The ultrasonic can get it hot and start a fire. If you ride a lot, I think it would be convenient to keep 3 chains on hand so you can clean 2 at once and always have one ready to go.

i usually take about 15min to wash my bike. this process is a full day just for the chain :) but thanks! very good :)

I thought I had a clean chain once. Then I put it in the ultrasonic cleaner at work. Black stuff flowed out. Amazing.

Simple Green is a non toxic, biodegradable degreaser that does a great job, as a soak or brush down.

My bike party's, so no metholated spirits.........it get Ketel One Vodka!!!

Howdy, A note on my experience with the ultimate clean and PTFE waxing: Having almost destroyed my BB30 bottom bracket from dirty waste from on-bike degreasing getting into the bracket, I was determined to switch over to clean “off bike” waxing. I bought a new KMC X10SL chain for my Felt Z85 training road bike and followed your instructions to the letter to clean the chain of its original heavy lube: gasoline, degreaser, 190 proof grain alcohol ( methylated spirits without the poison component). I then waxed/PTFEd the chain. I sensed the chain to be a little faster than when wet lubed, but not quite as quiet or smooth shifting. Still, I love the non greasy aspect. After 200 miles I went to rewax. I cleaned the outer chain with boiling water, but then inadvertently dislodged the outer plate of the last link so that the roller fell out. When picking it up I noticed that there was still a lot of original grease from the factory lube on this inner chain part. The 3 step cleaning process had not penetrated completely to the inner roller. I replaced the roller and rewaxed, but I am convinced I could have a cleaner, smoother shifting experience if my chain was truly sterile before waxing. I’m not really sure how to achieve my goal. If you have any thoughts, let me know. As always, I’m grateful for your fascinating and useful guides for tinkering cyclist. Best wishes, Keith

you're a legend, keep it up!!!

Hello, so a year ago, after watching this video I decided to give it a try. I really cleaned the chain as much as I could, however I didn't clean the freewheel. It worked nice for one or two dips into wax. Unfortunately later it became so dirty that I had to repeat the whole procedure again, and inspecting the chain I saw I still couldn't remove all the dirt from the outer surface of bearings. Also on one occasion, washing in soap has left stains on chain because petrolin didn't fully cleaned it. I really hoped I will not need to clean the chain again, so I figure that waxing is better when you have new chain and new freewheel. As with the current situation I am returning to good old machine oil.

"Pearl... whatever" lol

The wonderful master I've seen

Great videos. Thanks

Always good to combine polar and non-polar solvent cleaning stages. They remove different types of contaminants. For ultra-cleaning my lab uses a combo of heptane and acetone stages. Sometimes incorporating ultrasound and boiling. But any combo of hydrocarbon and alcohol (or similar) is a good place to start.

Waxed chains are great in Australia where it rains one day a year, not so much in muddy Flanders 😁

I tried for the first couple of years with my latest bike (I have only owned and ridden a single bike at a time)... to keep it clean and shiny all the time, immaculate. I obsessed over the chain to the point of cleaning it during rides. This is all while averaging over 7K miles a year, 20 to 120 mile rides year around. That means for me, living in the Pacific Northwest, 4 to 6 months of riding in the rain and on muddy wet surfaces. I have a Rohloff Speedhub mounted on a full-suspension touring bike coupled to a BBSHD mid-drive and it's amazing. It's broken me to ever owning another bike without a Rohloff. The mid-drive and the Speedhub are made for each other, they go together like lamb and tuna fish. @ The 1st year I rode I changed the chain 8 times... whenever it got to 0.5% wear as tested with a Park tool. After another 25K miles and 4 years riding I now wipe the chain clean daily and swap my chains every 6 months. Drop the chain, flip or replace the Rohloff gear, mount a new chain, and ride. Always having a straight chain line makes it amazingly easy to maintain. 11 Jul 19 - 71 miles w/front panniers & trailer on less than 15Ah... 1/2 the pack's capacity. www.relive.cc/view/g37290970278 photos.app.goo.gl/RD1NrDPCZQuHpWja9 For anyone that thinks they can really clean the chain on the bike, follow this guy's instructions then pull the chain and drop it in some type of solvent and see how filthy it still is.

This is indeed one of the better quality TDF machines and TOP matching in the TDF period -- Colnago teamed up with Campagnolo, what a great team! P.S., I'd like to see lighter weight 19mm conti tubulars on there at 175psi, just saying!

For you in the States who don't know what is mentholated spirits, it's rubbing alcohol w/ethanol

Awesome video Steve but I have the hardest time figuring out what exactly a degreaser is. Please don't laugh, hardware stores over here don't have a shelf labelled degreaser, just cleaners called after their main substance.. what's in it? Anything could be a degreaser.

I use a cylindrical Decor Tellfresh container to rinse my bicycle chains & some components . Glass jars when used for this purpose can unexpectedly shatter . Boston degreaser from Bunnings is what I use or Workshop degreaser from Supercheap Auto .

Awesome video👍🏾

Just so we're on the same page. Grease is what is in most bearings. NLGI 2 or the like. Don't oil them.

The petrol creates alot of gas fumes so much that the lid exploded off. Word of warning for everyone attempting.

Great video as is the next one on waxing. You’ve convinced me to go belt drive, (at least for commuting and bike packing)

Thank you for the video .

0:50 = waxed. Flips the bird at the other bikes 🤣

Best Chain Clean Ever at 10:35 ;)

I don't have my own house to do the gasoline (petrol) soak but I do work at a car dealership so the first thing I did was rinse my chain in the solvent pan. Next I sprayed it with a can of brake cleaner then did a few soaks (lots of shaky-shaky-shakies) in degreaser. After that I did a few soaks (lots of shaky-shaky-shakies) with denatured alcohol followed by soak in solvent. After that I did a vat wash and flushed that out with another can of brake cleaner. It came out really clean and I did the wax bath and it works really well now! When I run out of my plain candles I'm gonna buy some scented candles.

Also love your vids.

Smears grease on the nice clean sidewalk.

Made a right mess of the floor tiles wiping the dirty wax oil on it. Would it not have been a good idea to have a cloth for your dirt to be wiped on?

thx for this my chain never been cleaner - will have to look at the chain wax drill now

You know, some of us in the northern hemisphere are riding in winter weather now, and would really like to start using a new wax formulation... We don’t even need a video, just a list of ingredients and their proportions... ;) I’m ready to buy some MSW, but I’m holding out for the marginal gains and because I like to DIY. You’re killing us with this slow tease! I guess I’ll keep reapplying Slick for now.

I am biased. To mess around with all these chemicals. Hope you don't put them in the sink afterwards

So you go around and finger… bicycle chains? Don't get caught mate. Shrinks definitely won't believe you run a KZfaq channel on that.

Awesome vid! 👍❤👍

Great video👌👌

So much work. I think I'll just buy a new chain after every ride.

In California I would be arrested for using those chemicals!! :) Great way to clean a chain!! Although, I think he has way too much time on his hands!!

Oz man, Thank you so much for the chain cleaning method! F#%^K all the negative comments. They DON'T get it. Keep on doing what you do! I really appreciate it.

Brilliant vid

Nitril or vinyl gloves btw. Don't use latex.

Methylated spirits also known as denatured alcohol.

I'm out of breath with ALL this info - - puff puff - - I'm still with ya

the Oz man is back!!!